Don't trip over my smoke pot

The other day I tried to help a friend start his car. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t locate any tools or jumper cables. I ran home to get them, but they weren’t there. After a bit of head scratching, I remembered that I had left in the van the last time I used it. I like to be prepared whenever I go somewhere. The problem is, my fifty-two year old brain plays tricks on me.
Bill Cosby, in his book Time Flies, describes the fifty year old male mind as a magician. It hides your car keys—often in plain sight. One can picture your keys waving themselves in the air, saying, “Hey! Over here!” or else giggling while playing hide-and-seek under a stack of junk mail.
Cosby goes on to describe himself and others, like me, who like to be prepared for any situation. He describes juggling several items in his arms while trying to get out the door and lock it. Among the items is a smoke pot he carries, just in case he should run into his friend, who is an orange grower and might need to borrow one in the event of a killing frost. That’s me. Can’t get out the door without juggling several things in my hand.
All of this describes a goofy sitcom dad—which Cosby portrayed at several times. We love to make fun of them. The advertising industry regularly lampoons the obsessive-compulsive male who has to have things just his way with the car, his tools, the remote, etc. Let them. It was fun, laughing at Cliff Huxtable as he tried to lead his family while occasionally indulging in a submarine sandwich, which Claire told him was bad for him.
How one copes with being a goofy fifty-something-year-old male is first, don’t take yourself too seriously. Remember, God loves fools. “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God . . . as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”—I Corinthians 1:27-31. In other words, you’re not so big. God is. Secondly, develop a healthy sense of humor. Laugh at yourself. “A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance,” says the Proverb (15:13).
My teacher always said, “If you want to see God’s pathos, look at the cross. If you want to see God’s sense of humor, look in the mirror.” True, that. Come and see me sometime and we’ll talk about it. Just watch and don’t trip over that smoke pot. I sometimes forget to bring it home.